U.K. Economy Shrinks 0.5%, Less Than Previously Estimated

Britain’s economy shrank less than previously estimated in the fourth quarter as services and factory output was revised higher.

Gross domestic product fell 0.5 percent from the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. That compares with an earlier estimate of 0.6 percent, which was also the median forecast of 24 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Excluding the impact of the coldest December in a century, growth was “broadly flat,” the statistics office said.